Sure Fire Recipe for a Movie: Girls with Guns

Judith M. Brown in "Big Doll House"

Pictured : studio publicity 8 x 10 photo stills from 1971 exploitation flick Big Doll House (Judith M. Brown), Jeannie Berlin in 1970's The Baby Maker, and 1998 Hollywood / Hong Kong action fusion movie The Replacement Killers (Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino).

French New Wave film directing legend Jean-Luc Godard (1960's Breathless starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo) once said that, "All you need to make a film is a girl and a gun."  A true genius, Godard probably didn't know how right he was; "girls with guns" may be among the longest lasting and most pervasive cinematic tropes in existence.

Easily mistaken for a kinky camp visual thrill that occasionally crosses the screen (think James Bond girls), or a character attribute (Linda Hamilton aka Sarah Connor in The Terminator films), women packing heat are all over films of every genre.  Don't believe it?  Treat yourself to Moviebadgirls.com's online compilation of every girls-with-guns image archived on IMDb (The Internet Movie Database).

Chow Yun Fat & Mira Sorvino in "The Replacement Killers"

The movie bad girls photo index has screen grabs we expect to see, like Star Wars sci-fi Princess Leia and her big handheld blaster in The Empire Strikes Back, or Pam Grier as Foxy Brown in all her Blaxploitation '70s gangsta gun-crazed glory.  But the bad girls photo index also reminds us that ladies with lethal weapons grace big screen epics like Dr. Zhivago as well.  Back in the day, Julie Christie as the peerlessly furry snow-bunny Lara, elicited an audible gasp from the audience when she pulled a pistol on her Russkie sugar-daddy lawyer boyfriend in the classic 1960s MGM epic.  How could somebody so Cinderella good be sooo bad?

Japanese print comics known as Manga, and their film cartoon counterparts Anime (Aeon Flux anyone? She was in both genres, as well as in live action Hollywood cinema played by Charlize Theron with a dark wig), would have you think that they originated the concept of babes with bazookas sometime in the 1970s. There is no denying Japanese graphic novel artists and animators score points for being pretty obssesive about keeping these dangerous girls going.  The Shaw Brothers Hong Kong Studio of the 1960s also deserves a shout out for getting the current version of the action flick chick rolling with Cheng Pei-pei in Come Drink with Me.

Mira Sorvino pictured here in the Replacement Killers publicity shot tells us that this is still an area of interest for Asian film makers and movie goers everywhere.  But Bombshells with Bullets have been on film since film existed -- a few clicks on the net will find silent cinema sweethearts like Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford assuming the position with a piece.  The Golden Age of American movies, running from the 1920s until the beginning of the TV era in the 1950s, would not have been the same without its gorgeous gaggle of gangster and crime noir molls.

Jeannie Berlin in "The Baby Maker"

Occasionally a trope outgrows its fictive boundaries and prolapses into the real world.  Such is the case for this genre.  Buff action honeys in the flesh busting out of their glamoflage cami muscle shirts can be found selling real guns to real armies on the net (check out TacGirl.com, they'll send you a pin-up calendar of these real-life Lara Croft wannabes).

In case that fantasy incursion of TacGirls with guns into real life isn't weird enough for you, then you will love the reports coming out of Afghanistan about "FETS."  FETS is military speak for "Female Engagement Teams."  Apparently our American heroes G.I. Joe -ing around the Afghani countryside is really making Islamic folks uncomfortable about our combat soldiers so much as looking at Afghan ladies, let alone trying to speak with them.  The Pentagon's answer to the problem is FETS, or regular army women in cami fatigues with guns on patrol working to win the hearts and minds of people in rural Afghanistan.

If all this real world guns and gals is too much for you, then you won't have to wait long to ogle some fresh female arm-candy with ordinances back on the big screen where they rightfully belong.  Zack Snyder's new girls with guns actioner, Sucker Punch, will be out in 2011.  Sucker Punch's one-line, high-concept description from the director is, "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns." 'Nuf said.

Total snaps to the excellent website "TVTropes.com" for sending this Blog in the right direction.